What a week it has been eh? I have been on one proper roller coaster in my life and that was at Canada’s Wonderland during the one and only trip I’ve ever had to Ontario, Canada. Not gonna say that experience was fun for me but it was what it was. But the last few days are the closest I’ve come to that roller coaster experience from an emotional standpoint.
After the Oilers game against Vegas I was near sure that McLellan was gone that night, then I got a message that said he was staying, then I got another one that said hold on. THEN I wake up at 1:30 in the morning here in Taipei and I get the urge to just check my messages real quick and there it was, McLellan out, Hitchcock in.
Shocked. Not so much about the firing but about the hiring. Did anybody have a clue that Ken Hitchcock would even be an option? I sure didn’t. The people I talk to didn’t. I literally had no idea how to take the news that he was going to be the coach of the Oilers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TadZfKr1nL0
When I really got into my stride as a right proper hockey fan, as a kid I only watched the highlights because I thought the rest of the game was boring, the kind of fan that watches the whole game and pays special attention; that was about the time the Oilers were playing the Dallas Stars near every year in the playoffs that Edmonton made the postseason. Ken Hitchcock was coaching that team and I hated them so much. I hated Derian Hatcher and Mike Modano, Jere Lehtinen and Darcy Wakaluk. I couldn’t stand that a team who played in a desert were so good and they won all of the time.
So that was my first exposure to Ken Hitchcock.
Fast forward to two days ago and my tune has changed. I love Ken Hitchcock now! I’m a big fan of coaches who are both clever and wise. Hitch is very sharp in mind and wit and I guess in a way reminds me of how my own grandfather was and that was a man you did not mess around with but boy could he tell a good joke.
The whole story that comes with Hitchcock is fascinating too, right?
A Local Lad
The new Oilers bench boss is a local lad who worked at United Cycle and during his lunch breaks he’d walk down the street to the University of Alberta’s hockey arena and watch legendary (and how hall-of-fame) coach Clare Drake run practices for the U of A Golden Bears. He was a massively successful midget AAA coach in Sherwood Park and then again in Kamloops of the WHL where he won two Western Hockey League titles in 1986 and 1990.
In 1991, Hitchcock joined the Philadelphia Flyers as an assistant and stayed there for three years before moving on the become the head coach of the Kalamazoo Wings of the IHL.
On Jan.6th of 1996, he was named head coach of the Dallas Stars replacing Bob Gainey. The next season he lead the Stars to a first-place finish and a spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Speaking of Stanley Cup. The 98/99 season saw his Dallas stars hoist Lord Stanley’s cup over their heads for the first time as they beat the Buffalo Sabres. In ’99/2000, the Stars returned to the Cup final but were beaten by the New Jersey Devils. If I’m not mistaken, the Cups were both won on OT goals by Brett Hull (toe in the crease?) and Jason Arnott.
After Dallas Hitchcock moved on to Philadelphia, Columbus, St.Louis, and then Dallas again.
During that time (about 15 years) he only missed the playoffs with Columbus and Dallas.
So you might’ve known all of that but let’s look at the record of each of those teams in Hitch’s first full season with them.
- Dallas (1996/97) – 82gp 48w 26l 8t 104pts (1st in Central Division)
- Philadelphia (2002/03) – 82gp 45w 13l 4t 107pts (2nd in Atlantic Division)
- Columbus (2006/07) – 62gp 28w 29l 5ot 73pts (4th in Central Division)
- St.Louis (2011/12) – 69gp 43w 15l 11ot 97pts (1st in Central)
- Dallas (2017/18) – 82gp 42w 32l 8ot 92pts (6th in Central)
Three out of five debut seasons ended in playoffs and four our of five ended in 90+ point finishes. That’s very encouraging.
Last year Hitchcock’s Stars were only 3pts out of the final wildcard spot. So I guess the only real poor year was the Columbus one and it’s hard to put that on coaching when your starting goalie is Fredrik Norrena and you’ve got 37-year-old Sergei Federov centering your top line and 35-year-old Adam Foote anchoring your defense.
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What About This Year?
I like the odds of the Oilers making the playoffs this year under Hitchcock. Folks covering the team say the players didn’t quit on McLellan but I think if you ask ex-players (aka Marc Savard) not affiliated with the club or its former head coach, I imagine they’d say the players weren’t exactly playing for him if you know what I mean.
I’ve always wondered what a team with such offensive firepower would look like playing for a defensively minded coach. Furthermore, how are these young kids going to cope with having a bench boss who has a reputation for telling it how it is?
One of the most impressive lines on the Oilers against the Sharks was the 3rd line and Hitch was asked why he put Lucic, Brodziak, and Kassian together yesterday.
“An identity line. I believe that you have to have a group of players who set the work standard on your club. If you’re asking your top players to do everything, then you’re not putting players who should play that way in the position to have success.
“I want them to set the tone and the dial for how we want to play. They’re maybe not going to score as many goals as when they were younger, but when you see the way they played some shifts (Tuesday), they set the table for other people to perform. I don’t know who I’m going to put on that line, but whoever is playing with Brodziak has to play that way. They’ve got to grind that team down to where all they’re doing is chipping and changing, and then we’ve got them on the three-quarter ice game, and now we’re rolling.” (source)
I couldn’t be happier with that response. Ken Hitchcock doesn’t care how much Milan Lucic is making, he wants to see the Lucic from his junior days where he was a MASSIVE physical force. He wants to see him regain some of the confidence and soak up what Hitchcock has to give him so that he CAN score again for this team.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just on a high from the win but I feel really good now going into LA and Anaheim whereas before when McLellan was behind the bench, I wasn’t too sure how the Oilers would do in California.
Two more wins and they’ll surely be back in the top-3 in the Pacific.
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What About Peter Chiarelli?
When Peter Chiarelli says that he hired Ken Hitchcock, he’s not wrong. Technically, as GM/POHO of the Edmonton Oilers, he hired him but he didn’t really. From what I can glean from the situation and what I’ve been passed along, it was “you’re going with Todd or you’re going to hire who you’re told to.”
The one thing I don’t get from the anti-Chiarelli portion of the fanbase is what did they think was going to happen if Edmonton axed Chiarelli? Were the Oilers going to all of a sudden feel that sigh of relief and play better? No, of course not.
They bitch and moan about rebuild after rebuild and the trades but then they want the GM gone and are prepared for another GM to come in and take the time to build the team in his image. Well, how the hell do you think he’s going to do that? He’s going to deal players/picks that are worth something! He’s going to sign UFAs with whatever cap space he can accrue.
So hiring the coach was THE best course of action at that moment. The players will get a performance boost from it and in the short-term, the Oilers will be better for it.
Now, the long-term is a different story.
I’m of the belief that for the rest of the season Peter Chiarelli’s GM duties will get dialed down and passed on to Keith Gretzky with the intentions of having Keith take over the GM duties starting next season. I would think that means Chiarelli will get kicked upstairs and simply hold the title of President of Hockey Operations then.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American readers!
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!
